Page 140 - Arkansas Confederate Women

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS.

By Mrs. Josephine Robinson Brandenburg, of Jacksonport.

Mrs. Josephine Bobinson Brandenburg, who is a native

of Jackson county, Arkansas, thinks because she did not live
in the midst of battle-fields and was not near the seat of war
that her experiences are of little worth. But as it is easier for
soldiers to go to the front than it is to stay in the back ground

and wait, so it was much harder for those poor anxious women
to wait and watch and work without any news for many long
months often, from their loved ones, who were fighting afar
off, than it was for those who were nearer the conflict and

could not have time to think. In speaking of the days spent

in these long lonely years, Mrs. Brandenburg says: "We were

fortunate in not being in the thickest of the fight I presume,

but we. notwithstanding this, went through a great many hard-

ships and untold anxieties. At the beginning of the war my

home was in Jacksonport from which place the Jacksonport

Guards went out. I assisted in making their flag, which they

so proudly carried away, so faithfully protected, and though

"tattered and torn," they brought it back after having followed

it for four years. During the second year of the war, my
father, James Robinson, with my mother, myself, and several

true and tried slaves, moved to our plantation, about ten miles

from Jacksonport, where we spent the remainder of the time

Mytill the war closed. father was then 63 years old. Our

house was many times a haven of refuge for our soldiers. Once

when the Federal soldiers were known to be in our vicinity, a

girl, Miss Pink Weatherly, daughter of Capt. Weatherly, and

I stood for hours, at either end of the lane in front of our

house "watching for the Yankees," while my mother cooked
a midnight supper for some of our own boys. We spent most

of our days spinning, weaving and making garments and smug-

gling them to our soldiers, at every opportunity, but sending
them at great risk. At one time this same Jacksonport girl